R.I. Assembly considers bill to allow use of cell-phone records to find people who owe child support

Friday

Jun 14, 2013 at 5:08 PM

The General Assembly is close to passing a bill that would allow the Rhode Island Department of Human Services to use cell-phone records to find addresses of people who owe child support.Both the House...

Andy Smith Journal Arts Writer asmith651

The General Assembly is close to passing a bill that would allow the Rhode Island Department of Human Services to use cell-phone records to find addresses of people who owe child support.

Both the House and Senate have unanimously approved their versions of the bill, and are working out slight variations in language.

Fred Sneesby, spokesman for the Department of Human Services, said the bill was submitted at the request of the department, which has about 7,800 noncustodial parents who cannot be located. He said some are delinquent on child-support payments, but DHS also looks for others in an attempt to establish paternity or to ensure that medical orders are enforced.

He said the DHS already has the authority to find addresses through conventional phone companies; the new legislation would add cell-phone companies. He said many people no longer use landlines, so cell-phone information is increasingly important.

The bills before the General Assembly include language limiting the DHS to obtaining billing or residential addresses. It specifically prohibits the state from receiving any GPS data that might be generated by a cell phone. Sneesby said the state would not be able to obtain cell-phone numbers or a record of cell-phone calls.

Steven Brown, executive director of the Rhode Island affiliate of the ACLU, said he had initial concerns that the bills would allow the state access to cell-phone information beyond billing addresses. Brown said the ACLU worked with the Department of Human Services to clarify the language of the bills.